﻿<p>The wall represents a vertical construction that bounds or subdivides spaces. Wall are usually vertical, or nearly vertical, planar elements, often designed to bear structural loads. A wall is however not required to be load bearing.</p>

<blockquote class="extDef">NOTE&nbsp; Definition according to ISO 6707-1: vertical construction usually in masonry or in concrete which bounds or subdivides a construction works and fulfils a load bearing or retaining function.</blockquote>

<blockquote class="note">NOTE&nbsp; There is a representation of walls for structural analysis provided by a proper subtype of <em>IfcStructuralMember</em> being part of the <em>IfcStructuralAnalysisModel</em>.</blockquote>

<blockquote class="note">NOTE&nbsp; An arbitrary planar element to which this semantic information is not applicable (is not predominantly vertical), shall be modeled as <em>IfcPlate</em>.</blockquote>

<p>There are two main representations for for wall occurrences:</p>
<ul>
 <li><em>IfcWall</em> with <em>IfcMaterialLayerSetUsage</em> is used for all occurrences of walls, that have a non-changing thickness along the wall path and where the thickness parameter can be fully described by a material layer set. These walls are always represented geometrically by an 'Axis' and a 'SweptSolid' shape representation (or by a 'Clipping' geometry based on 'SweptSolid'), if a 3D geometric representation is assigned.
<blockquote class="note">NOTE&nbsp; The entity <em>IfcWallStandardCase</em> has been deprecated, <em>IfcWall</em> with <em>IfcMaterialLayerSetUsage</em> is used instead.</blockquote>
</li>
 <li><em>IfcWall</em> without <em>IfcMaterialLayerSetUsage</em> is used for all other occurrences of wall, particularly for walls with changing thickness along the wall path (e.g. polygonal walls), or walls with a non-rectangular cross sections (e.g. L-shaped retaining walls), and walls having an extrusion axis that is unequal to the global Z axis of the project (i.e. non-vertical walls), or walls having only 'Brep', or 'SurfaceModel' geometry, or if a more parametric representation is not intended.</li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="note">NOTE&nbsp; The entity <em>IfcWallbElementedCase</em> has been deprecated, <em>IfcWall></em> with <em>IfcRelAggregates</em> is used to describe occurrences of wall which are aggregated from subordinate elements, such as wall panels.</blockquote>

<blockquote class="history">HISTORY&nbsp; New entity in IFC1.0</blockquote>